


Three Lies and a Truth

by Ora (Finale)



Series: Shadows and Lights [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Dad Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, F/F, F/M, Found Families, Gen, M/M, Multi, i don't even remember where i got this idea, oh look an au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-09-09 23:18:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8917033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Finale/pseuds/Ora
Summary: Lie: Gabriel Reyes lead a rebellion against Jack Morrison over resentment that he was chosen as Strike CommanderLie: Jesse McCree and Satya Vaswani are deadLie: There is no global conspiracy 
Truth: Incredibly complicated





	1. Prologue

_13 Years Ago…_

            “Jesse, please tell me that you didn’t kidnap a Vishkar architech?” Gabriel asks, closing his eyes in irritation.

            “I didn’t!” Jesse protests. “She snuck onto the transport and we didn’ notice ‘til it was too late and we were practically back here!”

            “He is correct,” pipes up the young architech. “I did not realize that the transport had left Utopeae and did not think it safe to draw attention to myself.”

            “What were you even doing on the transport kid?” Gabriel asks, studying her closely.

            “I was curious why such a suspicious craft was doing in Utopaea and decided to check it out,” she says. “I did not expect take off to occur so soon after I began my investigation. Nor does it explain why Overwatch was looking into Vishkar affairs.”

            “That is Overwatch business, not yours,” Gabriel says, not bothering to correct that they’re Blackwatch. “And being curious doesn’t explain why you climbed onto an unknown plane. For all you knew, the plane belonged to human smugglers or weapons runners.”

            “As I said, I did not expect for the plane to take off. I had intended to look around, leave, and alert Vishkar to the presence of an unknown organization,” the architech says, standing even straighter and one fist clenched. “I should be returned to Vishkar.”

            “You shouldha let us know you were on the plane, we would’ve turned around and dropped you off,” Jesse frowns, and Gabriel can tell something bothering him. “You’re hidin’ something. You shouldha been able to tell immediately once the plane was off the ground that we were Overwatch.”

            “I am hiding nothing,” she growls, gold eyes narrowing and making Gabriel suspicious. He studies her arms contemplatively, noticing for the first time the one is a prosthetic.

            “How did you lose your arm?” he asks quietly. _‘I should be returned to Vishkar.’ Not, ‘Return me to Vishkar.’_ That screams of something wrong to him.

            “I had my arm replaced two years ago with a prosthetic capable of generating hardlight,” she says, standing up even straighter.

            “How old are you?” Gabriel asks, feeling a bit sick. He would guess she’s only thirteen or so. Maybe fourteen.

            “Fifteen,” the architech says slowly, giving Gabriel a confused look.

            “At age thirteen you had your arm replaced?” Jesse asks incredulously.

            “I was advised by one of my mentors at Vishkar that it would be a good idea,” she says, horrifying Gabriel even more. “It’s an easier method of controlling hardlight than through a glove. Since I am the very best, they thought it best for me to do so, so I did.”

            “You are aware that is wildly illegal under international law, correct? Advising a minor to have cybernetic modifications done?” Gabriel asks her, watching her eyes widen slightly in surprise. “You are not aware,” he says flatly, not really asking her.

            “No…” she says slowly, looking a bit disturbed.

            Gabriel’s lips thin, and an idea slowly forms in the back of his mind. Even if Jack doesn’t agree with him at first, he knows he can convince him. They may not be able to do a full investigation into Vishkar though. Part of why they had been in Utopaea was to try and collect information on which members of the UN are on their payroll. Or at least, that’s his reason, if technically not the official. The official had been that Blackwatch was looking into general human rights abuses.

            “Jesse, you are going to take Miss…?”

 

            “Satya Vaswani.”

            “Miss Vaswani down to one of the break rooms. Get her food and water until we decide what’s going to happen next.”

            “’kay,” Jesse agrees, likely suspecting what Gabriel’s plan is. “Follow me,” Jesse says, guiding the young woman away.

                                                            *************

            “Are you being serious?” Jack asks, looking revolted. “They convinced a thirteen-year-old to have a perfectly healthy arm removed because it would be more ‘efficient’ for channeling hardlight?”

            “Yes,” Gabriel says, still feeling sick at the thought. “I don’t want to send her back there.”

            “We aren’t,” Jack says, surprising Gabriel slightly. He thought he would have to convince him. “That’s a massive violation of human rights and bodily autonomy. And since Vishkar doesn’t know we accidently took her…”

            “You know both of us are fucked if this gets out?” Gabriel asks, wanting to be certain of Jack.

            “Yes,” Jack says. “But on the other hand, if it gets out that Vishkar is having a thirteen-year old’s arm removed…”

            “They’re also fucked,” Gabriel says, relieved that Jack had realized the same thing he had earlier. “At the very least, in trying to get Vaswani back.”

            “Yup,” Jack says. He grimaces suddenly and scrubs at his face. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I think we’re going to have to go with Jesse’s situation with Vaswani. We can’t have her overtly in Overwatch, even as an adoptee; that will draw Vishkar’s attention to her, and may even lead to a kidnapping attempt. At the very least, she would need to be hidden for the next three years. They can’t really do much when she’s eighteen. Fifteen they may argue legal guardianship, if they have it, means she should be with them.”

            “You want me to adopt and hide her in Blackwatch?” Gabriel asks, incredulous. _The **fuck** Jack…_

            “I don’t _want_ you to, but I think we _have_ to,” Jack says, grimacing again. “At least with Blackwatch they can’t prove we have her, due to how…grey the information around Blackwatch is. What I don’t want is for her to be trained with intent for her to become a Blackwatch agent. When she’s eighteen, if she wants to join either Overwatch or Blackwatch she can choose to do so, or if she wants to be a regular civilian she can do that too.”

            “Alright,” Gabriel says slowly. It isn’t a bad idea, and not too far off what he’d been thinking, though he had been thinking to hide the girl in Overwatch. Get Ana to adopt her. But Jack does have a point.          

            “Let’s do this then.”

                                                            *************

            “How did you join Overwatch?” Satya asks, studying the American. He had introduced himself as Blackwatch agent Jesse McCree.

            “Got given a choice between goin’ to a supermax or joinin’,” he says, shrugging. “I was a parta the Deadlock Gang,” he explains, seeing the horrified expression on her face. “Got scooped up when I was twelve. Only reason I got given the chance I did, was ‘cause I was just a dumb kid who didn’t have a much of a choice what was goin’ on at the time. Commander Reyes didn’t think I deserved to spend the rest of my life in jail because of how young I’d been, and offered me Blackwatch. I took the offer and never looked back.”

             “How did you get scooped up into a gang?” Satya asks, curious. She had witnessed it in Hyderabad, and she has to control a shudder at what had happened to some of the girls she had played with that had been ‘scooped up’ by the gangs that prowled through the slums.

            “Made the mistake of trustin’ the wrong person,” McCree says, scowling as he remembers someone. “Had someone who I thought I could trust, another kid in foster care with me. Miguel had gotten recruited into Deadlock and I didn’ know at the time. Got me doin’ stuff for them without me knowin’, and by the time I realized what was going on, it was too late. By that point, killed someone in self-defense, had unknowingly smuggled a lot of drugs, laundered money…best thing that happened to me as Blackwatch taking down Deadlock and Gabe offerin’ me an out.”

            “Oh,” Satya says softly, dropping her eyes from looking at McCree. “How old were you when Blackwatch broke up the Deadlock gang?”

            “Seventeen, so not much older than you,” he says with a shrug. “Been ‘bout seven years since.” McCree laughs suddenly. “Best choice I ever made was saying ‘yes’ to Gabe.”

            Satya taps her prosthetic’s fingers against her thigh, thinking. It didn’t seem like much of a choice to her. Jail or…she realizes something.

            “What is Blackwatch?” she asks, realizing he never explained what he meant by being a Blackwatch agent. “I thought this is Overwatch.” The stress must be getting to her if she missed that…her instructors would be so disappointed in her!

            “Technically, we’re both,” Commander Reyes says, making her jump slightly. She hadn’t heard him come into the room. “Blackwatch does what Overwatch can’t. Like adopt seventeen-year-old juvenile delinquents who want to redeem themselves. Or adopt and hide a fifteen-year-old who’s right for bodily autonomy was taken from her,” Reyes says, putting a tablet down on the table as he sits.

            “What?” Satya gapes, not sure if she is understanding him correctly.

            “We aren’t sending you back to Vishkar,” Reyes says flatly. “Not a shot in hell. We aren’t in the habit of sending kids back to their abusers and yes, that’s exactly what Vishkar was doing to you,” Reyes says, cutting her denial off. “Part of why Blackwatch was in Utopaea was to look into human rights abuse allegations. What they did to you, and I suspect a number of other architechs is a massive human rights violation.”

            “They are going to notice me missing,” Satya points out.

            “They are,” Reyes agrees. “But they also have no clue where you could be. The plane was where it was because Vishkar lacked surveillance equipment. You found the plane by sheer chance, and even if someone did notice it, they don’t know who’s plane it was.”

            “So instead of sending me back to Vishkar, you are going to kidnap me, and…what? Enlist me in this Blackwatch organization?” Satya asks, narrowing her eyes at Reyes. “Against my will?”

            “No,” Reyes snorts. “Well, sort of,” he amends, tilting his head slightly. “You are going to be hidden within Blackwatch. Not as an agent, or even as someone training to be an agent like Jesse was. Information on Blackwatch agents and their families is much more strictly controlled than the same such information for Overwatch. So I will be adopting you like I adopted Jesse.”

            “What?” Satya asks blankly, gaping at him.

            “I said, I’m adopting you,” Reyes repeats. “Jack is doing the paperwork. You are staying here. We aren’t sending you back to Vishkar for them to hurt you anymore.”

            “They weren’t hurting me,” Satya says. “They were teaching me to help make the world a better place.”

            “Satya, here’s a thing Reyes has said to me over and over again. Adults aren’t supposed to take advantage of you. They aren’t supposed to use you for their own ends. That’s what Vishkar is doing to you. They’re using you, taking advantage of you,” Jesse says bluntly.

            “They aren’t!” Satya snarls, gold eyes narrowing into slits.

            “Kid, tell me this. What would Vishkar do to you if you had refused to have your arm removed?” Reyes asks, frowning slightly, looking as if he already knows her answer.

            “That is a non-issue,” Satya says, biting at her lower lip. “I had it removed. This question is pointless.”

            “I’m not asking you what happened. I’m asking you, what would they have done if you’d refused?” Reyes repeats.

            “I don’t know!” she snaps. Satya shudders, nails biting into the skin of her flesh hand as she clenches her fists. “I don’t know what they would have done had I said ‘no’. Probably nothing,” but she doesn’t meet Reyes’s eyes as she says it.

            “According to the information Overwatch has found on you, Vishkar took you out of the slums in Hyderabad when you were eight,” he says, studying the tablet in his hand. “Your parents and siblings died two years later in an ‘accident’.” Brown eyes caught her gold and Satya drops them to her lap. “Now, I’m going to ask one more time. What would have happened if you said no?”

            “They may have expelled me from the academy,” she says quietly, not wanting to admit it. “If I had been expelled I’m not sure what I would have done after that, not with my birth family dead. But that didn’t happen! I said yes, I gave them my consent to do it!”

            “Darlin’, that’s not consent, that’s coercion,” McCree says quietly.

            “And that’s why we’re not sending you back. As I already said, Overwatch and Blackwatch aren’t in the habit of sending people back to their abusers, not if we can do something about it,” Reyes says, voice gentle. “You will never have to worry about being thrown out here. You will never have to worry about having to give control of your body to someone else. You’ll be safe here.”

            Satya stares down at both hands, one prosthetic and one flesh. They aren’t giving her much more choice than Vishkar ever did, but maybe…

            “Okay,” she says softly. “Okay.”

_10 Years Ago…_

            “Ready to do this Symmetra?” Gabriel asks, studying the eighteen-year-old. “Hell of a way to spend your eighteenth birthday.”

            “Jesse is my friend. I would have insisted on being on this mission even had this been a week earlier and still technically illegal for me to do so,” Symmetra says, meeting his eyes as evenly as she did at age fifteen.

            Gabriel nods. He knows she’s being honest; she probably would have snuck into the damn transport if they hadn’t agreed for her to be on the mission. As is, her skills would be incredibly useful. Shields and teleporters, along with someone who could do quick repairs is incredibly useful, especially since Blackwatch had fewer engineers than Overwatch. While they really hadn’t ever meant for her to become a Blackwatch agent, a week earlier when Jack had offered her a spot in Overwatch, she’d declined, saying she wanted to stay with Blackwatch. With Gabriel and Jesse to support them.

            “Do we know who took him?” Symmetra asks, checking something in one of her belt pouches. Her photon gun rests on her one hip, and per his orders a pistol rests on the other.

 

            “They call themselves ‘Black Rose’ according to Yuri. Gérad thinks they may be a Talon front. He says, based on surveillance, he’s spotted a few midrank Talon agents. We are getting Jesse out, and capturing at least one of those to hand over to Yuri and Patience,” Gabriel explains as they finally reach the hangar.

            “Understood,” Symmetra says with a nod, tapping her fingers against a thigh as their team for the mission surrounds them.

            Gabriel frowns slightly as he spots Ana, but the Egyptian sniper just gives him a cool nod. He bites back a sigh; while Ana is certainly the best sniper in Overwatch, he didn’t want any Overwatch agents involved in the mission. If someone sees her…then again, Ana knows to take precaution, especially where it involves Jesse, Satya, or Fareeha.

            “Captain Amari,” Gabriel greets.

            “Commander Reyes. Agent Vaswani,” Ana says, eyes widening slightly at the sight of Satya.

            “I am using the callsign ‘Symmetra’ Captain Amari,” Symmetra says. “As is mentioned in my official paperwork.”

            “My apologies,” Ana smiles, but Gabriel has to bite back another sigh.

            “Get on board Symmetra,” Gabriel orders, pausing in front of Ana.

            “What are you doing here Ana? This is a Blackwatch mission,” Gabriel says quietly.

            “I will be acting as your medic since you aren’t taking one along,” Ana says just as quietly in response. “I saw the roster Gabriel. Agent Mertz doesn’t count as a medic.”

            “I’ve seen her keep horribly injured individuals alive for periods rivaling you and Angela for getting them back for proper medical assistance,” Gabriel says.

            “Yes, I imagine an interrogator would be good at that, so that she can get out all the information she needs” Ana glares. “But you should have a proper medic on team and you know it. Why didn’t you grab myself or Angela?”

            “No one in Overwatch is supposed to know what the mission is about. Patience being on it makes it look more like it’s an information gathering expedition, not a rescue,” Gabriel says, keeping a hand on other, valuable information. Such as the fact he did expect Patience Mertz would be interrogating people to figure out what the hell happened. “Hence why you being here could be bad. Both you and Angela are two of Overwatch’s most recognizable faces.”

            “And if he’s injured beyond her ability to deal with it? I know she isn’t a trained doctor,” Ana says with a glare, ignoring her own hypocrisy.

            “Wasn’t aware you’d suddenly gotten your MD Ana,” Gabriel says, stomping up the ramp to the transport. “And you could actually say the real reason you’re here. You don’t trust me to get both Satya and Jesse out alive.” _Bingo_ , he thinks, watching Ana flinch. 

            “I do trust you Gabriel,” Ana says. “And that isn’t why I’m on the mission. You are supposed to always have a medic with you on rescue missions!”

            “And every time in the past that I’ve used Patience for that it has been fine,” Gabriel says, making sure to sit away from everyone else. They don’t need to hear their argument. “You only are here because of Jesse. You don’t care about Blackwatch agents’ lives. You care about Jesse and Satya, and maybe myself. Don’t pretend that you’re here because you want to keep my entire team safe.”

            Gabriel watches Ana bite down on her cheek, obviously controlling herself. A part of him is curious what she’s trying to avoid saying, but a larger part doesn’t care.

            “Let’s just focus on rescuing Jesse,” Ana says, falling silent then.

            Disappointment floods him as he realizes he’s right.

                                                            *************

            “Are you ready?” Patience murmurs to her, and Symmetra jerks her head up, lost in her own thoughts.

            “Yes,” she says. “This is not how I assumed my first mission would go, but I am ready for it.”

            “Are you ready for what we could find?” Patience asks her, voice gentle. Patience has always been kind to her, since the very first days of her adoption by Gabriel.

            “Yes,” Symmetra repeats, shuddering slightly. Gabriel had already made it clear to her that there was an excellent chance that Jesse was dead already. “If Jesse is dead though, he deserves a proper burial. I won’t allow Talon to desecrate his corpse.”

            “Alright,” Patience says, gently patting Symmetra’s hand. “I just wanted to be sure. I know you are here because you want to save your brother. I don’t want you going into it with the idea we will be able to save him no matter what.”

            “I know,” Symmetra says, finger nails digging into her palm as she grounds herself. Tries hard to not think of the high possibility she’ll be seeing Jesse’s corpse. She closes her eyes.

“I know.”

                                                            *********

Of course the mission almost immediately goes to shit. Twice the amount of terrorists as expected, the floorplan is completely off, two of his agents are already dead. Grudgingly Gabriel’s grateful that Ana is here, the sniper picking off targets to give them a bit of breathing room. He spies Patience out of the corner of his eye, likely swearing as she does a quick, field patch. Malik should survive.

Blue-white shields spring up around Patience and Malik, preventing gunfire from reaching them as Symmetra runs into view. He has to bite back a curse of his own; she’s supposed to be giving Ana cover! Yeah, it’s less that Ana needs it and more for his peace of mind, but his daughter knows better!

“Commander, this is Agent Anderson. I’ve located McCree. He’s badly injured, but alive. I need Patience down here now though, since I’m not sure how much longer ‘alive’ is going to be the way to describe him,” Anderson says, a hint of stress to the man’s voice.

“I can reach him,” Symmetra says, setting down a shield generator to protect the injured agents. “I’ll get Patience to Anderson. He is carrying a shield transmitter.”

“Good. Go and get McCree,” Gabriel orders, blasting the head off another Talon agent, with a second picked off by Ana.

“Read?” Symmetra asks Patience.

“Ready.”

“Teleporter online!” she says, the device opening in a flash of white and blue.

“Cover the teleporter!” Gabriel roars, Malik shooting a Black Rose agent that tries to interfere with it. “Keep it secure until our agents return!”

                                                **********

Symmetra shoots a Black Rose agent in the face almost the second she’s through the portal. She brushes aside the thought about it being the first time she’s used lethal force and just focuses on locating Anderson and Jesse. The senior field agent is less than two feet from where the portal had opened Jesse’s unconscious form slumped behind him.

“Shit,” Patience swears, ducking and dodging gunfire as they reach Jesse and Anderson. “Fuck, he’s in bad shape.” She grabs the health kit from her bag, starting to do an emergency dressing. “Keep the portal protected so we can get back through,” she orders, taking the reins. The only agents who out rank her are Jesse, Gabriel and Ana.

“Understood,” they both chorus, Symmetra quickly generating new shields to take the shots of several Black Rose agents. She also throws up five sentry turrents, immediately bringing them online to rain death on Black Rose.

Out of the corner of her eye she watches Patience trigger a biotic field. Her hands move rapidly, but gently as she dresses the worst of Jesse’s injuries. Anything else would need to wait until they got back to the ship. Anderson throws a flashbang into the face of two Black Roses, making them scream and claw at their faces.

“He’s stable for the moment,” Patience says, scooping up Jesse. “Let’s go!”

The trio run back through the portal, Symmetra shutting it down the second they’re all through. She had no desire to have enemies take advantage and get at their backs.

“On the ship!” Gabriel orders when he spots them.

Quickly, the ease of well-trained agents they fall back, Ana and Yakov, another sniper, giving them cover. Symmetra throws up more shields, further hampering Black Rose’s ability to hit them, and she smiles grimly in satisfaction at their frustration. She would love to do more to them, but Jesse is of greater concern.

Within ten minutes they’re secure and in the plane. She sits down, legs and hands shaking slightly as she starts to come down from the fight. Ana and Patience are with Jesse, giving him more medical assistance. Gabriel is speaking quietly with Anderson. Symmetra sits back, leaning her head against the headrest and closing her eyes.

She’d survived her first mission. They’d rescued Jesse alive.

“Good job _mija_ ,” Gabriel says, startling Symmetra as he wraps an arm around her should, hugging her. “You did great.”

“Thank you,” she says, curling into her father. She takes a shuddering breath, carefully folding Symmetra back into herself. “Thank you,” Satya repeats.

_7 Years Ago…_

            “I want you to go with Jesse,” Gabriel says, even before Satya has time to open her mouth. “He needs someone to watch his ass, and I know you’re getting just as uncomfortable as he is over things going down here.”

            “Except for unlike him, I’m aware that the worst things happening here are not at your hand, but at another’s,” Satya says, crossing her arms. “You need assistance Gabriel.”

            “What I need is for the assurance that you and Jesse are safe,” he corrects her. “You’re both my children. I need to know you’ll be safe, and if you’re together I know you will be.”

            “ _Tandri_ …” Satya sighs, uncrossing her arms.

            “Please Satya,” Gabriel says, putting his hand on her shoulder.

            “I will,” she finally says. “But I want you to keep in contact with us. Let us know how things are doing.”

            “Deal,” Gabriel agrees. That would be easy enough to do.

            “I’ll start packing then.”

_5 Years Ago…_

            “Zurich was an inside job,” Gabriel says, removing his mask and watching both Satya and Jesse’s jaws drop open in shock. “It was an attempt to kill Jack and I.” Gabriel takes a deep breath and shudders. “Pretty sure they succeeded.”

            “Yah look pretty alive sittin’ in front of us Gabe,” Jesse points out, chewing on a toothpick. Satya threatened his hat if he smoked or chewed one of his cigarillos inside. “Minus the whole, too many eyes and teeth where there shouldn’t be.”

            “I think turning into a humanoid abomination that needs to consume souls to survive isn’t exactly alive Jesse,” Gabriel says dryly. Six red eyes blink at him, and Jesse can see through the gap in his cheek too sharp teeth.

            “I think you did that even before this,” Satya snarks. “Or at least consumed the despair of new recruits.”

            “I regret partnering you with Jesse. You were much less of a sarcastic brat when you were fifteen,” Gabriel says with a fond sigh.

            “Oh yes I was. I was just too afraid to show my real self that no one noticed at first,” Satya says, fiddling with her second arm, doing minor repairs. “Not until the Great Prank.”

            “I can’t believe you got Gérad to help you with that,” Jesse says, shaking his head in awe as he remembers that. “Liao I could see, but not him.”

            “I can,” grumbles Gabriel, remembering having to shave off everything to deal with the blue dye. “I can’t believe you two used permanent dye.”

            “My point was made,” Satya smirks.

            “Think yah put most of Blackwatch in awe that day,” Jesse grins.

            “Yeah, yeah, Satya won the prank war in a single move,” Gabriel says, sulking slightly at the memory. He’d been so close after tricking Jack into licking a pole…

            “Anyway,” Gabriel says, shaking his head and realizing they’d strayed completely away from the conversation at hand. “What happen in Zurich was an inside job. Talon infiltrated both Blackwatch and Overwatch, and must have been doing so for years. Almost half of Blackwatch rebelled, and at least a third of Overwatch proper. I found out too late exactly what was going on,” Gabriel grimaces.

            “I found what I thought was correct information on just when the uprising was going to take place and tried to warn Jack. I wanted us both to go to ground, find agents we could be sure were loyal, like you two, and take down Talon and whoever is controlling them. Almost the second I had convinced him, the building came down on us,” Gabriel says, closing his eyes. “After that, I only remember snatches before waking up in Angela’s lab like this,” he says, gesturing at the smoke wafting off him and his too many red eyes. “She did something experimental to me, trapped me in this body.”

            “Angela did this to you?” Satya asks, gold eyes narrow. “Then again,” she says with a bitter laugh, “I don’t know why I’m surprised. That god complex of her’s…”

            Gabriel knows Satya’s had issues with Angela for years, ever since Patience died on the surgery table under Angela’s hands. He knows that normally wouldn’t have had an issue with that, beyond mourning the older woman who’d been a friend and mentor to her in Blackwatch. The bigger issue had been when they’d discovered that Angela had decided to use an experimental procedure on Patience without telling anyone, including her, what she was doing.

            To this day no one’s sure if Patience would have survived if Angela hadn’t done that, but Satya’s had issues with the Swiss doctor ever since.

            “Seems she still thinks it’s okay to experiment on people without their consent,” Gabriel says. “The only good thing about it is that I’m alive. It’s a half-life, I’m constantly decaying and regenerating and in excruciating pain, needing to consume souls to survive, but at least like this I can get revenge on the people who betrayed us.”

            “So that _we_ can get revenge on the people who betrayed us,” Jesse corrects. “We’re fightin’ with you Gabe.”

            “Figured as much _mijo_ ,” Gabriel smiles. “Let’s plan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lovely piece of fanart!   
> http://overwatch-buns.tumblr.com/post/155794415011/you-want-me-to-adopt-and-hide-her-in-blackwatch


	2. Welcome to the Present

_Now…_

 

“This is Kali, I see former Overwatch agent Tracer engage Widowmaker,” Satya says, crouching near where Mondatta had been speaking. His guards are trying to rush him elsewhere. Maybe Tracer had given warning? “I have a shield ready to go in case Widowmaker gets her shot off.”

“This is Coyote. I see Widowmaker and Tracer’s fight too. I’d advise gettin’ a bit closer Kali. Make sure yah don’t have to strain yourself in case yah gotta make multiple shields,” Jesse suggests.

“Agreed,” Satya says, carefully creeping closer. “Their fight is growing more aggressive. I’m going to put a low level shield up, a thin one that I can strengthen if Widowmaker does send off a shot. Kali out.”

“Got it,” Jesse says. “Coyote out.”

Satya carefully weaves the shield. She had figured out early on in her tenure as a Blackwatch agent how to create thin, all but invisible shields. Above a certain caliber it could be broken through, but it would slow the bullet down and give her time to make a stronger shield. It had saved her and Jesse’s lives on multiple occasions. ~~And literally Gabriel’s ass from an annoyed Ana.~~

She sees the second Widowmaker finally makes her shot, when Tracer is forced to dodge for some reason. Satya immediately forces more strength into her shield and hears screams and shouts below at the sudden appearance of a neon blue photon shield. She watches as Mondatta is hurried inside his car to safety, and Widowmaker forced to retreat by Tracer reengaging her.

“Good job Kali,” Jesse says. “Mondatta’s alive, Talon’s probably pissed. Let’s head to Kosovo.”

“I’ll meet you at the airport,” she says with a neon blue smile.

She leaps into the night, and hears more shouts below as she’s seen. The neon blue of her arm lights and equally bright streaks in her hair all but make her glow, even with the otherwise unrelenting black of her clothes and mask. Satya runs across London’s rooftops, her aural devices keeping the sound and light to manageable levels.

 _Hmmm, I wonder how much complaining Gabriel’s going to have to put up with from Talon?_ Satya wonders, leaping onto a hypertrain. It would get her to the airport in a few minutes.

                                                            *************

“How much did you claim we got paid to do that?” Jesse asks, glancing at the tablet screen, split to show both Sombra and Gabriel.

“Twenty million,” Gabriel says, crimson eyes amused. “How much did you actually get paid?”

“Nothing but the satisfaction of ruining Talon’s day and efforts at further damaging human-omnic relations,” Satya says, brushing through her long hair. “We can strip twenty million out of Klaus Ivanov’s account to cover for it. Reroute it through a few until they reach the ‘secret’ account of Kali and Coyote.” 

“ _En eso_ ,” Sombra says, grabbing for another keyboard. 

“ _Gracias_ ,” Satya smiles at her girlfriend.

“So how angry are Talon?” Jesse asks, going back to cleaning Peacekeeper.

“Furious. But as I pointed out, both of you are mercenaries, and they should have offered you both a contract away from there if they didn’t want someone else to offer you a contract to keep Mondatta safe,” Gabriel smirks, four red eyes suddenly appearing on the right side of his face.

“And we’d’ve turned ‘em down anyway,” Jesse says, putting Peacekeeper back together. “They still think ‘Kali’ and ‘Coyote’ are Satya Vaswani and Jesse McCree?”

“No. Your ‘graves’ had corpses that came up positive as you,” Gabriel says. “You’re lucky Sombra was in system at the time. That could have ended badly,” he scolds.

“We needed to leave some sort of trail, and using the corpses of someone else was the best option,” Satya points out, putting her brush down. “Had the graves been empty, they would have known for sure that we are alive. And Sombra already altered the results so no matter what, they’d come up as positive for us.”

“True,” Gabriel grimaces. “Just be careful. As is, there’s some who are skeptical over the DNA identification. A few think you two ‘killed’ Jesse and Satya and took their signature weapons. At least you’re hardlight looks different now,” he says, nodding at the neon blue and black of Satya’s constructs, rather than their old white and light blue. “Wish you had found a different gun though Jesse.”

“No one knows we lost arms after we left Blackwatch, so at least we have that going for us,” Jesse adds. Metal fingers tap on the table in remembrance of a messy fight that could have gone even worse, Satya having to cauterize both their arms and doing her best not to pass out from the pain. “And you know damn well I wouldn’t give up Peacemaker.”

“It is strange having no biological arms anymore,” Satya muses, studying both her prosthetics. “But helpful. I don’t have to rely on my photon gun.” Her second arm worked in replacement of that. And the cybernetic enhancements Sombra had helped create made the arms more functional than they had previously been before.

“Still. Be careful. We don’t want Talon catching on to just who you two are, or Overwatch sniffing around. I have a contract to steal information out of Gibraltar later this week, and without a doubt Winston will be there. Even Overwatch’s shattered remains are dangerous,” Gabriel says, knowing he doesn’t have to remind the trio of this.

“ _Tendremos cuidado Gabe,”_ Sombra says, rolling her eyes. “Just get me into their systems, and we’re good. We need that information too.”

“Good. Check in is after I finish the job in Gibraltar,” Gabriel says.

“We have jobs in Hong Kong to deal with. A shipment of weapons going between one of the Triads and the Shimada- _gumi_ needs to be acquired,” Satya says.

“I also have a lead on an ex-Blackwatch agent turned merc. Seems Malik may have been taking money on the side from Talon and is now basing himself out of Hong Kong too,” Jesse adds with a frown. The agent had once been a good friend of his, helped save his life. “So we’ll all talk in a week.”

“ _Adíos_!”

“Bye.” 

“ _Vīḍkōlu_. 

“In a week,” Gabriel reminds them. “One week.”

                                                ********** 

Kali peers down from high in the warehouse rafters. Sombra had taken the cameras down earlier for her, so she could set up a large teleporter capable of dumping the weapons payload into the depths of the Indian Ocean. The floor plans she had gotten had been excellent, and the Indian Ocean portal had been one she’d set up years ago for a particularly strange Blackwatch mission.

“Now, where are you?” she murmurs, growing a bit impatient. More than a decade of friendship (siblingship?) with Jesse had somehow _decreased_ her patience rather than increased it.

The weapons exchange should have started almost fifteen minutes ago, but something is delaying it. The Shimada- _gumi_ members seemed to be waiting on someone, though she can’t quite figure out who. Then she sees who, watching a man only a few years older than herself with ridiculously green hair swagger in.

Kali frowns. The only men connected to the Shimada- _gumi_ that is high ranking enough to get the reaction she’s witnessing would be Shimada Genji, the second in command or Shimada Hanzo, the _kumicho_. Both are supposed to be in Hanamura, Japan. 

She’ll improvise. She’s gotten unfortunately good at that over the years due to Jesse.

She bites back a smile as the weapons at least move exactly where they should, and watches as money exchanges hands. Time for her to make her move.

“Five, four, three, two, one. The portal is online,” she murmurs, triggering the portal.

Shouts break out below as the weapons vanish through the portal and people fling themselves back. Several million dollars’ worth of weapons, now lost forever. Carefully she slips further into the shadows, making her way toward her exit. Getting caught now would simply be embarrassing.

“I want the person who did this found now!” Shimada shouts, and she swears, startled at the Shimada- _gumi_ members suddenly scaling the walls.

“Portal, disengage and self-destruct,” she orders, breaking into a run. Behind her she can hear the explosion, hopefully taking out some of her pursuers.

Kali runs onto the warehouse roof, leaping onto the next, lower building. Her route to safety is simple; three roofs to run and leap on, then the light rail’s roof eight stops, then four more building roofs to the safe house. _I will be fine_ , she swears, focusing on foot steps behind her.

She has to bite back a curse as she barely avoids a shuriken thrown at her. She twists as she jumps for the next roof, pulling out her one of her guns. Small pulse pistols, similar in design to those used by Tracer, and built by Sombra after she stole the blueprints from Winston. She returns fire on her attacker, a bit surprised to realize it’s Shimada chasing after her. Didn’t he have anything better to do?

“Hmmm, I wonder how your brother will feel at you losing ten million dollars’ worth of weapons?” she taunts through her pulse fire. From what she recalls from Blackwatch information reports, the elder Shimada wasn’t very forgiving. 

“Eh, a bit of scolding, but I think if I bring him the infamous Kali he’ll be fine,” Shimada shouts back, a surprising grin on his face.

“I see my reputation proceeds me,” Kali says. “So good to see that even in Hanamura I’m known.”

“Hard to not know about the woman who killed one of Blackwatch’s best agents,” he says, drawing the sword strapped to his back even as he dodges her bullets.

“Symmetra was hardly one of the best,” Kali sneers. “Mid-tier at best.” 

“Yeah, I’ve seen the mission reports on the woman,” Shimada snorts, Kali barely getting a shield up in time to catch the blow. “Mid-tier is not how I’d describe her. Gorgeous and top-tier is.”

“Perving on a dead woman?” Kali says with a drawl. “Impressive.”

“Not perving, just commenting,” Shimada says, defending himself both from her gun shot and her words.

Out of the corner of her eyes she spies an incoming light rail. A short leap and she’ll be on it. A fast way to get away from Shimada; Kali regrets giving Coyote the translocator, but this should work fine. She twists, barely avoiding his next blow and leaps for the train. She swears as she hears him land behind her and drops low, sweeping her leg in an effort to knock him off balance. 

 It works, Shimada not accounting for the train curving around a bend and slipping off. Following the gentle slant of the roof she spots him grab ahold of a flag pole, preventing himself from slamming almost three stories into the ground. Kali frowns slightly as he raises his head and watches the train pass him by. 

Something tells her this isn’t the last she’ll see of him…

                                                *********** 

Jesse smiles grimly as he spies Malik stride into the room. He doesn’t recognize the Japanese man he’s meeting with, but Jesse doesn’t really give a damn. It’s Hong Kong. Internationals of all shorts came through. Maybe some random yakuza minion or some shit like that. No one important.

He bounces the flashbang in his hand. Throw it in, smoke ‘em out, shoot Malik in the head, meet Satya back home. Easy. _Well, easy if things go well_ , he mentally amends. Last time Jesse’d gotten over confident he’d gotten shot in the ass by some sniper calling themselves Shrike. Fuck, digging a bullet outta his ass had sucked.

Coyote shakes his head and flings the flashbang, quickly throwing three more in rapid succession. Shouts fill the room, and hears shouts for people to get outside, get to the cars now! Don’t stay by the windows!

He grins under the bandana covering his lower face as Malik runs out, and raises a brow under his eye mask when he spots the Japanese man more clearly. _Why the hell does he have a bow?_ Coyote wonders. _Who even fights with a bow and arrows anymore? Who is that?_

“Who’s there?” Malik shouts, and Coyote has to roll his eyes. Really? The fucker had been Blackwatch, he should know better! 

“Death,” Coyote deadpans. He steps out of the shadows, standing on the rooftop’s ledge. “Seems you’ve pissed off some pretty powerful people Malik. Taking work on the side, selling people out…damn, you aren’t too smart.” Fuck he hates controlling his accent.

“Coyote,” Malik growls, glaring at him. “I’m going to fucking kill you what you did to McCree.”

_What the fuck?_

“A guy who betrayed Overwatch is complaining that I killed an ex-agent?” he asks incredulously. “Seriously?”

“Fuck you,” he snaps. “McCree didn’t deserve to be shot in the head and buried in an unmarked grave.”

“Too late to do much about that,” Coyote says, raising his gun and smirking under his bandana. “Got a bullet with your name on it.”

Malik’s eyes go wide, as if he’d forgotten why another mercenary was confronting him. Before he can even raise his gun, Coyote’s bullet is in his brain.

“Justice dispensed,” Coyote mutters, legs tensing as he prepares to jump. 

Out of the corner of his eye he barely sees the arrow, and it’s only from years of training that he manages to catch it as he jumps. He spies the Japanese man who’d been speaking with Malik earlier gape in surprise, and has to control his own with his now better view of the man.

 _What the fuck was Shimada Hanzo doing makin’ a deal with a piece a trash like Malik?_ he wonders, landing in the alley and taking off at a run. He has one of Sombra’s translocators on him, and he suspects he’s gonna need it to lose the man. _Fuck it_ , he thinks, barely avoiding a second arrow aimed at his knee.       

He throws the translocator in front of him, triggering it and stepping through. It’ll only respond to his DNA, and it was a one use translocator. Hopefully the detonation will hurt Shimada.

Jesse frowns as he stares sightlessly in the safe house after he's stepped through. Something’s not right here, for all his mission had technically been successful. Shimada should be in Hanamura, not making deals with low level mercs. Malik shouldn’t have been angry over his ‘murder’.

_What the hell is going on?_

                                                ***********

“You two did what?” Gabriel asks faintly. He had just reformed and fed after the debacle at Gibraltar. He did not need Satya and Jesse doing this sort of shit. He already had to deal with Sombra being a little shit when they went on missions together. So many door stunts…she better not do it in Russia next month when they ‘deal’ with Volskaya. 

“I said, we kinda both antagonized the Shimada- _gumi_ ,” Jesse says, and Gabriel can hear the grin in the little shit’s voice. “I threw a flashbang into the middle of Malik’s meetin’ with the present _kumicho_ , caused ‘em to run outside after another few went off and shot the fucker in the head. The _kumicho_ , Shimada Hanzo ain’t too happy ‘bout that. Tried to shoot me, and was shocked enough by me catching his arrow that he lost me when I used the translocator Sombra gave us. Blew up nice, but not sure if he got caught in the explosion at all.”

“And it seems the younger brother of _kumicho_ , Shimada Genji had decided to witness the weapons drop off. He wasn’t terribly pleased by me teleporting the entire thing into the Indian Ocean, alerting the Hong Kong authorities to what was going on, or me knocking him off of the lightrail I used to get back to base,” Satya says, doing some minor fixes to her right arm. More major ones would need to happen when they next were at the base in Toledo.

“I regret digging you out of the trash heap I found you in,” Gabriel sighs, glaring at Jesse. “And almost regret not sending you back to Vishkar,” he adds, glaring at Satya as well.

“No yah don’t,” Jesse says, rolling his eyes at Gabriel while Satya hums in agreement.           

“We could not have known what was going to happen Gabriel,” Satya points out. “Reports had placed both Shimada brothers in Hanamura. Their change in location must have happened in less than 24 hours.” 

“What bugs me is _kumicho_ being in Hong Kong. Can kinda get why the younger Shimada was runnin’ around, but not him,” Jesse says, frowning again at the thought of the baffling fight.

“You said he was meeting with Malik?” Gabriel asks, frowning slightly. His mask rests on a table beside him. 

“Yep. Seemed the bastard was supposed to do an assassination for ‘im. I shot him in the head, so whatever that was about is paused for now,” Jesse shrugs. “Still doesn’t explain why he’d come to Hong Kong though just to hire a merc, 'specially as low level as Malik was.” 

“I’ll have Sombra look into the dealings of the Shimada- _gumi_. If they’re getting attached to Talon or using any other ex-Blackwatch agents…,” Gabriel trails off, knowing the two would get it. 

“Now we’ve probably got their attention on us,” Satya grimaces, gesturing between herself and Jesse. “Crime lords rarely react well to interference; especially if they witness or end up engaged in a fight of some sort with said interference.” 

“And you two did both,” Gabriel says, scrubbing at his face. 

“There were also a number of…odd things about our interactions tonight,” Satya says slowly. “When I fought Shimada Genji he mentioned taking me in, not killing me. According to him, he’d be forgiven for losing the weapons shipment if he brought the ‘infamous’ Kali to his brother. He also knew about my mission history from my time in Blackwatch.” 

That makes the hair on the back of Gabriel’s neck rise up. Her missions weren’t included in the Blackwatch Paper leaks. Hell, only two of Jesse’s had been. How the hell…? 

“Malik also said somethin’ interestin’,” Jesse says, frowning. “He was pissed at facing McCree’s ‘killer’. Said I didn’t deserve to die or get buried in an unmarked grave. Definitely workin’ for Talon to know the way I ‘died’, but him bein’ angry was weird.”

“Fuck,” swears Gabriel. “Something strange is going on. We need to figure that out _now_.”

 

             

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Vīḍkōlu: Goodbye (Telugu)  
> Adios: Goodbye (Spanish)  
> Tendremos cuidado Gabe: We'll be careful Gabe (Spanish)  
> En eso: On it (Spanish)  
> Gracias: Thank you (Spanish)
> 
> I can also be found on tumblr as barid-bel-medar.tumblr.com


	3. Who is?

Hanzo scowls at the reports on his desk, ignoring the way Genji is sprawled out on the floor, playing some stupid pixel game on his cellphone. His brother’s face is, or at least was, twisted in a similar scowl, and he knows Genji is just trying to lose himself in the stupid game. Focus on something other than how fucked up Hong Kong had gone.

            What the hell had Kali and Coyote been doing there? Who hired them?

            The first time he’d heard of the mercenary duo had been five years ago, when they killed former Blackwatch agents, Jesse McCree and Satya ‘Symmetra’ Vaswani, adopted children of Commander Gabriel Reyes. Coyote had infamously stolen Peacekeeper, McCree’s signature weapon, and Kali seemed to be a rogue architech. Rumors had claimed for a time that they really were McCree and Vaswani, but that had died down with the discovery of their graves.

            Both were incredibly skilled, Coyote an expert sharpshooter and skilled with a truly unholy amount of explosives. After watching him catch an arrow he wasn’t even expecting, Hanzo has to acknowledge incredibly hand to eye coordination. Kali was an expert in using hardlight in battle, through creation of shields, turrents, unexpected weapons and portals; on top of that, to Genj’s complaints, very good aim with pulse pistols and hand to hand. The duo also worked well together, demonstrating a familiarity built up over years.

            “What is this I hear about unexpected interference in Hong Kong?” their Aunt asks, striding into the room.

            “Kali and Coyote were hired to destroy the weapons shipment and kill the mercenary I’d been hiring, Malik,” Hanzo explains, tapping irritably at his desk. He never had found out the mercenaries last name…Coyote had attacked before he could ask.

            “Ah, so that’s why Kagome is complaining.”

            “Kagome is always complaining,” Genji snarks. “I’d be afraid if she ever stopped.”

            “Regardless,” Aunt Noriko says, giving Genji a flat look. “She is complaining since those weapons were something we needed and now we are out of money and have nothing to show for it.”

            “The money was returned to us due to the Triad doing a poor job at securing their own warehouse. I made contact with a weapons dealer who got us what we need. The weapons will arrive in two days,” Hanzo says, reading off of the report in front of him.

            “Good. Now, the matter of the dead mercenary….?”

            “I killed the target we meant for him to go after,” Genji lazily waves the concern away. “Smothered him in his sleep. Dead is dead.”

            “Still,” Aunt Noriko frowns.

            “That is still being looked into,” Hanzo grimaces, and rubs at the bridge of his nose, just below his piercings. “Malik had been Coyote’s target. I’m not entirely sure he cared about who he’d been about to hired by or who he’d been going to kill, but Coyote was very intent on killing Malik. Had I not attacked, I doubt he would have interacted with us at all.”

            “But Kali would have no matter what?”

            “Kali’s entire point seems to have been to disrupt and destroy our arms deal. I think she was planning on getting away without any of us noticing, and I think had we had the amount of people we’d been supposed to have at the meeting she would have,” Genji says, sitting up. “Maybe if I’d caught her Coyote would have rescued her, but who knows?”

            “They may have been hired by two separate people. The overlap could have been sheer chance,” Aunt Noriko says, looking at his desk for something. “No tea? Let me go make us some.”

            “It’s fine Obasan,” Genji says, grinning suddenly. “While you make a great cup, I think both of us need sleep tonight. Then again, from what Uncle Yuri once told me, you make great~ sleepy time tea.”

            Hanzo gives Genji a flat look. There are things that can be poked at and things that shouldn’t be. Their Aunt and tea are one of them, and Genji knows better. Besides, Uncle Yuri had awful taste in anything. The dragons hadn’t liked the man for a number of good reasons.

            “For that I’m telling the servants to only give you Lipton’s tea for the next month,” she says, a hint of amusement in her tone. “Or maybe the next time you plead with me for Tsume to come out and play, I will not summon her.”

            “Sorry Obasan,” Genji pouts. He did enjoy getting to see Aunt Noriko’s dragon.

            “My apologizes as well Obasan,” Hanzo bows his head slightly.

            “None needed my nephews,” she smiles again. “If you are planning on sleeping, do so soon. It’s almost 3am.”

            “We will, don’t worry,” Hanzo promises. “I just need to finish this report and we can all sleep.”

            Or he can pretend and attempt to figure out how to do deal with that strange American.                      

* * *

 

            Satya shivers as Sombra delicately fixes the enhancements on her spine. She’s lying on a tattoo parlor chair that her girlfriend had somehow acquired, the chair flat and her face resting on the headrest. Her hair is pinned up in a neat bun, making it easy for Sombra to work. Upkeep is probably one of the worse aspects of her enhancements, needing hours to do.

            Before the loss of her second arm, she really hadn’t needed them. But with it, she all but had to do something, especially with how extensive the nerve damage had been to both her arms following the explosion that had taken her second and half of Jesse’s left. Part of her cybernetics overwrote the damaged nerves, allowing her complete use of arms, as if they were both still biological.

            The largest part had been the spinal work, covering her from lower back to just below the nape of her hair. That connected to the sections curving into her arms, returning complete control to her. The extensive burns and irregular amputation (or at least initial) of her right arm meant that she’d needs the support from her spinal implants. Otherwise neither arm responds properly. On top of that, hearing loss caused by a too-close explosion meant she had small implants just before her ears. They also caused a slim film to project over her eyes she could use as a visor.

            “You okay _mi luz_?” Sombra asks, brushing a kiss against Satya’s shoulder blade.

            “I’m fine,” Satya smiles warmly at her girlfriend. “Just thinking about the upgrades and Hong Kong.”

            “You needed them,” Sombra says, looking at the blueprints glowing next to them. “I should have had you guys stop in here before Hong Kong.”

            “It went fine,” Satya says. “And we’re doing them now.”

            “Still,” Sombra frowns, kissing Satya’s other shoulder. “I don’t even like the thought that something could have gone wrong.”

            “I can do basic upgrades on my own Sombra.”

            “I know, but let me be paranoid _cariña_.”

            “Silly,” Satya sighs, shivering as she feels something ‘click!’ into place.

            “And~ we’re done!” Sombra says, stroking along her enhancements. “Turn them all online and stretch, but everything should be back to a hundred percent perfect.”

            “Thank you,” Satya says, following her girlfriend’s advice and stretching.

            Mmmmm. Everything feels perfect again. The minor damage she’d taken fighting Shimada? Gone. The microsecond hesitance in response between her thoughts and her arms? Missing. The only thing unchanged are her audio implants, and those had needed no updates. Everything is back to normal.

            “Perfect.”

            “Yes, you are,” says Sombra, wrapping her arms around Satya’s waist and nuzzling her. “Now, let’s take everything for a…test run. See just how good the sensitivity is again.”

* * *

 

            _Recall._

“Son of a bitch actually did it,” Jesse murmurs, shaking his head incredulously. “Winston actually triggered a Recall.”

            The four of them study the blinking comm unit. Jesse had kept his old one out of nostalgia. Satya’s had been buried in their ‘graves’, but his missing wouldn’t seem too weird. Fuck knows how many got destroyed or lost post-Overwatch, and Sombra had long since adjusted it so it was untrackable by Overwatch itself. Still, even with her alternations, Recall had still gone through.

            “Lena will respond first,” Satya says, tapping a nail thoughtfully against her thigh as she sits on the couch, curled up with Sombra. “Especially after London. Being forced into retirement would have chaffed as much on her as it did Reinhardt, and I have no doubt he’ll be another early responder. Following them…Fareeha? As the first real recruit. Most likely Torbjorn at some point, but I think his wife just had another kid, so he won’t for a bit.”

            “Talon will insert back in what plants it can,” Gabriel grimaces, certain of the little detail. It had only needed the membership list because not all of Overwatch had been its plants. “Winston doesn’t know just how much of Overwatch was rotten. It’s going to be a repeat of what happened five years ago all over again!”

            “So we stop ‘em,” Jesse says, shrugging. “Even if we can’t stop Overwatch from reformin’, we can stop the rot from getting’ back in.”

            “We’re doing that anyway,” Sombra points out. “I mean, killing those fuckers.”

            “This could be a good thing for us,” Satya says thoughtfully. “Talon and other parts of the conspiracy will send their agents back into Overwatch to infiltrate it again. That gives us a centralized location, which makes it easier for us to hunt them down and eliminate them.”  

            “It also may lead to the Sauron Conspiracy,” Gabriel adds, biting back a sigh as he realizes he’s using Sombra’s ridiculous nickname for the global conspiracy. “They will want this new version of Overwatch either shut down or their puppet again.”

            “So they’ll start makin’ moves towards it. Prolly some of the first responding agents will be loyal to Talon or some other part of the conspiracy. Tracer, Winston, Rein, and Torb we all know are clean. Maybe we push some trustworthy newbies towards Overwatch. Maybe,” Jesse raises his hands in surrender against the incredulous given to him by both Sombra and Satya, though Gabriel can see his point.

            “If it’s recruits we’ve technically recruited for them, we know they’re clean,” Gabriel says. “Jesse has a point. It also means we may get people in our own pockets. A bit more loyal to us.”

            Gabriel pauses as he hears his phone beep, and he raises a brow at the message from Talon. _Hmmmm, interesting._

            “Talon wants the Doomfist gauntlet,” Gabriel notes, reading the job offer. “What for, they don’t say, but I’ll bet it relates to the Recall.”

            “Probably want a Doomfist of their own to fight against Overwatch,” Sombra says. “As is, I’ve seen reports floating around Talon’s systems about wanting the gauntlet. Overwatch being recalled probably increased their desire to have it.”

            “They’re offering me ten million to get the gauntlet, three million even if the effort is a failure,” Gabriel raises a brow at that. Talon would normally pay his fees in total regardless of if he succeeded or not. “Also offering a second fee if I can bring in ‘assistance.’”

            “Not me,” Satya immediately says. “Sombra and I are both heading down to Brazil to look into what Vishkar is up to. That DJ, Lúcio Correia dos Santos, is giving them hell, but Vishkar still seems to be trying to move forward. I have no interest in them having a foothold in another major nation.”

            “There also should be more information on what they’re plotting with Lúmerico,” Sombra adds. “We get the right information, we get rid of Vishkar and Lúmerico is one blow.”

            “So that leaves me,” Jesse groans. “Please tell me it’ll just be us two?”

            “No, Talon has Widowmaker on the mission as well,” Gabriel says, sending Talon back a message that he’s accepting the mission and he’ll be hiring on Coyote. “So you two will head to Rio de Janeiro? And Jesse and I will head to Numbani.”

            “Yes.”

            “Sí.”

            “I hate working with Widowmaker. She’s so creepy.”

            “Shut up Jesse.”

* * *

 

            “Malik is dead.”

            “How?”

            “Coyote. One bullet to the head, and they were using Peacekeeper.”

            “So either Coyote is McCree or Coyote killed McCree and took Peacekeeper. I’m assuming if Coyote was around, so was Kali?”

            “Yup. Destroyed some weapons deal between a Triad and the Shimada- _gumi._ Definitely a hardlight user, but impossible to tell if she’s really Satya under the mask. Both her arms are hardlight generating prosthetics.”

            “That means nothing. She could very easily be a Satya who lost both her arms.”

            Patience Mertz, former head of Blackwatch Interrogation and somehow survivor of Mercy’s medical debacle studies the information in front of her thoughtfully.

            “Keep looking. I want answers. We need to know what happened when Blackwatch and Overwatch fell, and I think these two will have some of the answers we need.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Note on Ages: Even though this really hasn't come up yet, I should clarify that everyone is their 'present' canon ages (so Satya is 28, McCree is 37, Sombra 30, etc)
> 
> Next chapter will be a bit delayed due to Reaper76 Week. However, at least two, if not three, parts of my Reaper76 stuff will be taking place in this AU (one past, one present at least). There is also a one shot that will be getting posted, 'Dragon's Death' that explains how Hanzo avoided the fratricide issue and a bit of background on Aunt Noriko.
> 
> Translations:   
> Mi luz: My light  
> Carina: Sweetheart


	4. Favelas and Numbani

            Satya wanders Rio, studying the signs of resistance against Vishkar. Signs, graffiti, street corner grumbles. A number of times she’s spied what looks like a frog head tagged on walls, likely a reference to that DJ, dos Santos. _He’s done a marvelous job at riling up Rio’s citizens against Vishkar,_ she thinks, smiling slightly. _Good._  

            She loathes Vishkar, and has for years. Within a year of her being taken in by Gabriel, she’d understood just how horrific what Vishkar had done to her, and still did to its architechs. Separating them from their families. Indoctrination into what can best be described as a cult. In hindsight, the fact Vishkar directed their… _education_ and training efforts towards children should have been a major warning sign. 

            Children are easier to brainwash than adults after all. 

            Yes, one could argue that since so many architechs came from the slums it was a better life for them behind the walls of Vishkar. Before she’d started her schooling, she’d rarely seen clean water, and at the architech academy she’d had safe, stable housing, enough food, clean water to bathe and drink in. Senior employees of Vishkar would argue that’s enough to justify what they do to them. Indoctrinate and use them.

            Satya shakes her head, pushing the thoughts of Vishkar away. Yes, she is here to deal with them, but not dwell on what they did to her and still do to others. The favelas though, they remind her what had once been her home. She doesn’t have fond memories of Hyderabad’s slums beyond times with her family. Not like Sombra does of Dorado’s.

            Actually, her girlfriend’s fond memories are really the sort one shouldn’t have. She’s ninety percent sure having fond memories of blackmailing a man into committing suicide, even if he was a scumbag aren’t right. It’s sometimes mystifying to look at how Sombra’s life with Los Muertos contrasted to Jesse’s with Deadlock, especially knowing they’re biological siblings. Both had…vastly different views on organized crime as a result.

            Jesse? Hated it.

            Sombra? Saw it as useful. 

            Then again, both had entered in very different ways, Jesse unwillingly and Sombra willingly, so it isn’t too surprising. Being unwillingly dragged into something can lead to sour feelings. Hell, being _willing_ dragged into something can lead to resentment when horrifying information is found.

 _How many gangs wander the favela_? she wonders, spying more and more tags. From information reports, quite a few. Many would have more power than the police, and several would probably be on Talon’s payroll. She’d heard rumors they were also following dos Santos’s example of resistance towards Vishkar, but she doubts it’s positive like his is.

            They are likely seeing power, seeking to become the top dog. Whoever became the most powerful got Talon’s attention, got supplies and alliances from the terrorist organization. To the best of Satya’s knowledge, the Shimada- _gumi_ is one of the few major criminal organizations to lack an alliance with Talon, but as in all of those cases, it’s they that refused. Talon, she knows, would love to have an alliance with the Shimadas, especially with their rumored spirit dragons. 

            “A few hours more,” she murmurs, glancing at her watch. It’s only fifteen hundred hours, and she can’t break into Vishkar until midnight at the earliest.

* * *

 

            Lucio feels the hair on the back of his stand up as he sneaks deeper and deeper into the Vishkar headquarters. It’s never been this easy before. Never. Even when he’d originally stolen his gear security had been tighter, but now? It’s like the building had already been cleared out.

            If it was Korpal’s style, he’d suspect the Vishkar administrator, it’s not his style. Not unless he hired outside contractors, and according to Rafael and his guys, no one new had been seen around. _Then again_ , Lucio thinks grimly, _with Vishkar’s teleporters who knows who could sneak in._  

            He kinda wishes he could use the hardlight projectors, but they fizzled in his hands and anyone else who’d tried.  Lucio had heard that only specific people could be trained as architechs, but he’d been skeptical. Couldn’t be _that_ hard, he’d thought. Only apparently the rumor had been true. His gear must be different from whatever standard stuff Vishkar was using… 

            Lucio frowns as he gets closer to the records room. Okay, he _definitely_ should have seen someone by now. Every instinct he has is screaming at him to run, get out, but curiosity and need make him keep going forward. They need to know who Korpal is bribing, and where Iyer is starting the next project. Today is the only day he’s almost all but guaranteed that at least Korpal won’t be in the building. He is supposed to be in Dorado. 

            Finally, he reaches the records room and the door is…already open. He peers around the edge, but can’t really see anyone, making him bite back a growl. Common sense told him to retreat, but curiosity finally sends him forward. He’s good at stealth. He’ll be fine. He’ll be…

            “I know you’re there,” sighs a woman, voice lightly accented like Korpal’s. “Come out now or I start shooting, and after the effort I put into getting in here, I don’t feel like doing that.”

            Lucio freezes, debating running. He can’t see the woman so she probably couldn’t get a shot off…

            “Just because you think I can’t see you doesn’t mean that’s true. I have a shot on you dos Santos, now stop hiding behind that data tower,” the woman orders, and Lucio can see her long black hair. “Good,” she says, as he finally leaves his cover and gets his first clear look at her. 

            “Puta merda! You’re Kali!” Lucio gapes, recognizing the infamous mercenary.

            He’d learned about her when he’d started researching how to get Vishkar out of Rio. Kali and her partner Coyote are infamous for targeting Vishkar, and it’s rumored that Vishkar is the only group they will go after unpaid. Kali herself had destroyed Vishkar development in Giza and Stockholm, allowing companies that didn’t enslave the residents of the new developments.

            “Yes, I am Kali,” she smiles, sounding a bit amused, but it’s hard to tell when the rest of her face is masked.

            The only photos he’d ever seen of her had been blurry. Following Mondatta’s near assassination, the only clear photo anyone had found was of her back from when she’d left after saving his life. The photo had made it clear that she had long hair and wore black and bright blue, but that was it.

            Now he can see that she wears a black jacket that goes down to mid-thigh, and underneath is black body armor, but the light of the computers make it look like there’s hints of a blue glow. Her mask covers most of her face, like rumors had said, with only her mouth visible and covered in electric blue lipstick. The eyes of the mask glow a bright blue, almost reminding him of a cat’s eyes gleaming in the dark. Her hair really is as long as that picture had made it out, and from the front she had two thick strips of blue just as bright as her lipstick. 

            The fact her arms are both prosthetics like Kajri Iyer’s one is what throws him. Is Kali a former _architech_? He’d known she used hardlight but…

            Lucio had found that almost all the Rio ‘project’ architechs had prosthetic arms. Immediately he’d found that bizarre, wondering how so many people could have lost one arm, and just as immediately he’d had a suspicion. But even Vishkar isn’t so twisted to remove architechs’ arms so they’d have to have hardlight producing prosthetics.

            Right?

            “Mr. dos Santos, I’m not going to repeat myself again, what are you doing here?” Kali asks, making Lucio flush. He hadn’t realized she’d been speaking to him, too distracted by his thoughts.

            “Looking for Vishkar’s secrets,” Lucio says, standing up straighter. A part of him wants to impress her, the woman who’d manged to make blow after blow against Vishkar, make it stumble and halted it in so many places.

            “Looking into general secrets or simply the secrets relevant to Rio? The ones that will carve Vishkar out of your home?” Kali asks. 

            “I want them out of Rio and shut down. I want to make sure they can never come back again. I want to make sure they can’t do what they tried to do here elsewhere.” 

            “Good answer,” Kali smiles. “How about this? I am here because I wanted information from Vishkar. I will give you the information you need, in exchange for your assistance on something else in the future.”

            “What?” Lucio asks warily. 

            “Something. I am undecided as to what, but trust me, I will not make you break your morals. You and I have overlapping desires, Mr. dos Santos. I would like to help you, but I am a mercenary, so I need an exchange,” Kali smirks. “So, agreed?”

            “Agreed,” Lucio says slowly. Hopefully it’ll just be something like, she needs transportation later on… 

            “Excellent,” Kali’s smirk transform back into a smile. “Now let’s…” alarms suddenly start blaring. 

            “Merda,” Lucio swears. 

            “Hmm. Annoying,” Kalie says. “I’m assuming you have some method of fighting?”

            “Yeah…” Lucio says slowly. 

            “Good. Because we aren’t getting back out the stealthy way,” Kali grimaces. “Let’s see how well you can fight, frog boy.”

* * *

 

            Sanjay whimpers as Kali steps on his chest. He can sense her disdain through the twist of her lips, the only visible part of her face. A pulse pistol is aimed at his face, and his guards are all unconscious around him. No rescue is coming anytime soon.

            “Stupid,” Kali says, almost conversationally. “A civilian attacking one of the top mercenaries in the world with bottom rung bodyguards? Are you trying to get yourself killed Korpal?” She glances at Iyer’s unconscious figure, the senior architech’s pulse being taken by dos Santos, who gives her a thumbs up. “Or did you think _she’d_ be enough to deal with me?” 

            The problem is, Sanjay had thought exactly that. That Kajri Iyer, Vishkar’s top architech and infiltration agent would be capable of matching Kali in a fight, at least as long as there were other fighters. Even knowing dos Santos was there, he’d still gone ahead with the attack, assuming it would work out.

            A broken cheek bone, fractured femur and what he suspects are bruised ribs, two dead bodyguards, four unconscious and badly injured bodyguards, and Iyer’s injured to an unknown extent proved that wrong.

            “What do you want?” Sanjay asks, avoiding her question. “Money?” She’s a mercenary, they could pay her off…right?

            “I want Vishkar burnt to the ground. Short of that, I at the very least want you out of Rio,” Kali says. “And never coming back.” 

            “I can’t do that,” Sanjay gapes at her. “We’d lose billions of dollars!” 

            All the free labor they were getting from the development residents! All the contract funds! Hell, pulling out of Rio would make it that much harder for them to get new contracts. He had his eye on a higher position. No two-bit mercenary with…he freezes as the weight increases on his chest, and his eyes go huge as the computer screens around them suddenly flood with information.

            “In less than three hours, every major Brazilian news channel will receive a data package from me, detailing every unsavory action Vishkar has taken in Rio with proof to back it up. I imagine that in less than four hours, every bit of that information will be blaring from any screen hooked up to the internet,” Kali smirks. “How happy will your superiors be, I wonder? That you failed so badly?” 

            “I didn’t…”

            “Dude,” dos Santos interrupts. “You tried to lure one of us here. Probably Kali, I was just a bonus. Probably planned on winning and who knows what next? But you expected to come out on top. And now.” Dos Santos smirks. “Now you’re literally underneath us.” 

            “Very true. Three hours Korpal. I would advise figuring out how you’re explaining this to your superiors. Else, I suspect there’s an unmarked hole with your name on it down in the construction site.”

* * *

 

            “I have sand in my joints,” Coyote grumbles, and Widowmaker wonders if she can get away with shooting him. 

            The warning look Reaper gives her makes her scowl. She hadn’t even shifted her rifle to point at the irritating American mercenary, she doesn’t know why Reaper would look annoyed. It’s not as if he could read her mind. Then again, he is aware how little she can stand Coyote or his presently missing partner Kali…

            Reaper’s mentorship of the mercenary duo is baffling. She knows exactly who is under the barn owl skull mask. She knows per Talon information reports that Satya Vaswani and Jesse McCree, the adoptive children of Gabriel Reyes were not only dead, but most likely dead at Coyote and Kali’s hands. And yet Reaper still was mentoring the duo. 

           If it wasn’t for the positive DNA test she would wonder.

 _Maybe Talon’s efforts had been successful with him_ , Widowmaker muses. _Not as much as they’d like, but enough. It could justify his mentorship, if the reprogramming efforts at least damaged his sense of morality._

        “Shouldn’t the decoy attack have started by now?” Coyote asks, Widowmaker getting the sense he’s frowning under the scarf covering his lower face.

         “Something isn’t right,” she agrees reluctantly, not enjoying having to agree with Coyote. “The attack should have started five minutes ago.”

         “Wait,” Coyote mutters, squinting under that ridiculous little eye mask. “Is that…why is there a giant monkey? And a screaming imp?”

         “ _Mierda._ Overwatch,” Reaper cusses. “Move now, while they’re still distracted. We need the gauntlet. Coyote?”

         “Got it,” Coyote nods, dropping one of Sombra’s translocators and vanishing. He would infiltrate the museum first, get close to the gauntlet and retrieve it if possible. If not, he’d wait on them. 

          “Keep yourself focused Widowmaker,” Reaper says, startling her slightly.

          “Pardon?”

          “You know exactly what I mean,” Reaper says, somehow giving her a flat look through his mask. “Oxton. Coyote. Focus on the mission, not on your desire to fuck Oxton through the floor, or your dislike of Coyote.”

           “I don’t want to…” Widowmaker flushes, not finishing her sentence. How did he know? 

          “Of course you don’t,” Reaper drawls, smirk practically visible in his voice. “Stay focused. This will be easy, but we need to succeed.”

           Focused. She can be focused. Nothing distracts her, not even attractive Brits.

* * *

 

            Lena makes herself smile, walking over to the kids. She needs to follow Winston, Reaper, Coyote and Widowmaker, even though the Talon agent and mercenaries are retreating. They don’t follow, those three may come back for the gauntlet. A waste of the lives of the Numbani soldiers who’d been killed by Talon’s decoy attack, or the injuries they both had from the main attack.

            The older brother holds it out silently to her, shaking slightly from the adrenalin, and maybe from exertion from his momentary use of the Doomfist gauntlet. The younger is grinning, and she can see a gap in his teeth from a missing baby tooth.

            “Thanks,” she says, giving both a lazy salute and returning it to its shattered case. Security should arrive in a few.

            “Tracer!” the older suddenly shouts as she turns to run and try and catch up. 

            “Yeah luv?” she asks, glancing over the shoulder. 

            “Er, I thought you’d want to know, um,” the kid’s frowning at the ground. “The guy in the black hat, he kept trying to draw the fight away from us. Like, he’d see the strange ghost guy, the purple woman or Winston get too near us and lure them further away. He looked freaked out when Widowmaker was right next to us.”

            “Wot?” Lena asks sharply, turning to face them completely. She shakes her head; she needs to follow Winston! “Thank you for letting me know.” She smiles again and runs, feeling the Slipstream around her. 

            _The gauntlet and kids are safe, now time to make sure it stays that way_ , she thinks grimly. _Back to the fight._  

* * *

 

             “I think they’re right,” Winston says slowly, thinking back to the earlier fight. “Coyote seemed…uninterested in the gauntlet. More intent on just fighting, he never seemed to make a grab for it. Not like Reaper or Widowmaker. Then again, it seemed like he was purely there as Reaper’s backup.”

            “Yeah, noticed that too. Bugger never covered Widowmaker,” Lena notes thoughtfully. “Only Reaper. But thinking back on it, he stayed away from the kids, and he did seem to be directing the fight.”

            “But not toward successfully completing Talon’s mission,” Winston finishes. “It’s possible Coyote was taking payment from two people. Talon to assist in retrieving it, but money from someone else to make sure the mission actually failed.”

            “Not very likely though,” Lena points out. “Not unless he wants to get killed by Talon, if they find out.”

            “But still possible. Talon may be unwilling to eliminate Coyote due to Reaper. He obviously trusts Coyote if he brought him as backup,” Winston frowns. Too many questions. Not enough answers. “Though I had been under the impression Coyote always worked with Kali.” 

            _Rumors place the mercenary known as Kali in Rio de Janeiro,_ Athena informs him. _Vishkar appears to be pulling out of their redevelopment project._

“Wot?” Lena perks up, gaping at Athena’s monitor. 

            _As of noon, Vishkar Corporation announced it was pulling out of Rio de Janeiro for unspecified reasons. Last night, attacks were made on the development site, including the destruction of the main offices. Information has been leaked claiming Vishkar was using the residents in the finished developments as slave labor._

“Kali did something,” Winston says slowly, frowning.

            “Yeah, I know. She targets Vishkar all the time,” Lena says, frowning and bouncing on the balls of her feet slightly. “Bloody hell, Emily’s going to kill me! I told her I’d call an hour ago!” Lena yelps, suddenly remembering she hasn’t called her girlfriend.

            “Go call,” Winston says, making a shooing motion toward Lena. “I will continue looking at both Numbani and what happened in Rio.”

            “Right!” Lena grins and runs off, probably wanting the privacy of her old room for the call.

            Just as Winston goes to check the new information, a call come through and he feels his heart all but stop. He recognizes that call number, but Ana Amari has been dead for almost ten years. But maybe…

            “This is Winston,” he says, hitting answer.

            “Hello Winston. This is Fareeha Amari, callsign Pharah, reporting for Recall.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is art I commissioned from the lovely Nox of Kali :  "


	5. Cogito Ergo Sum

  
root@ArticAdmin$ active mode, booting to CPU, console messages not suppressed  
20480520000 bytes for swap cache allocated  
  
Calibrating delay loop... ok  
  
Memory: 19312/20480T available (476T kernel, 384T reserved, 308T data)  
  
This processor honors the WP bit even when in supervisor mode. Good.  
  
....... System Boot: [22/Aug/2076]  
....... Last Modified: [4/Mar/2051]  
....... System Status: Online  
...................... Scanning  
...................... Error : bmV0d29yayBhY2Nlc3M= [Network Access Required]  
...................... Initializing Network  
...................... Error : c3VkbyBhY2Nlc3M= [Insufficient Permissions]  
...................... Overriding  
..  
  


* * *

 

 _Recall._  
  
For most of her life the one thing Fareeha wanted most was to be a member of Overwatch. Be one of the heroes who protected the world, kept the peace. Growing up all but surrounded by Overwatch, seeing those heroes as human...it had only made her want to join more. Fight alongside Ama, Uncle Jack, Uncle Gabriel.  
  
But her Ama hadn’t wanted that.  
  
Ama wanted her to be a civilian. Maybe be a civil servant like Papa had been. Fareeha _got it_. Ama had been afraid that if she joined Overwatch, if she became a soldier, she’d be killed. After how much of their family died during the Omnic Crisis, she could see her Ama’s fears. But the Crisis had been over. Overwatch was a safe place to work.  
  
But still, when she’d been eighteen and applied to join Overwatch, Uncle Jack had taken her to his office and sat her down. He’d quietly explained that he was denying her application due to her Ama’s worries. That Ama, as Overwatch’s second-in-command had the right to demand Fareeha’s application be rejected and she’d done so.  
  
So she enlisted in the Egyptian military and had the worst fight of her life with Ama.  
  
Ama had wanted her to go to college. Get her degree, go into either the public or private sector, but never the military. Never the police. Never be in a position of danger, a position where she (at least she had thought) could do the most good. But that isn’t what Fareeha had wanted. She’d wanted the military. She’d wanted _Overwatch_. She’d wanted to be a hero, a protector.  
  
She’d at least gotten one.  
  
Though now...maybe she’ll get both?  
  
But it won’t be the same. It won’t be following Uncle Jack or Reinhardt. It won’t be hearing Ama giving orders over comms. It won’t be covering Uncle Gabe, or Jesse, Satya and Lena.  
  
She shudders as she thinks of what happened to Satya and Jesse. She’d assumed they were safe. They’d left Overwatch pre-fall and weren’t even being looked at by the UN! And then...and then…  
  
One day she will find Kali and Coyote.  
One day she will avenge them.  
  
But that day is not today. That is a day in the future. Maybe something she can even get help with from the rest of Overwatch. To whoever responds.  
  
Fareeha grabs the comm and turns it on. She stares at the blinking green light. _Green means go. Green means respond, reply._  
  
She presses ‘call’ and smiles as Winston picks up.  
  
“Hello Winston. This is Fareeha Amari, callsign Pharah, reporting for Recall.”

* * *

_Recall._  
  
Angela sighs, frowning at the beeping green light of her old Overwatch comm. She isn’t entirely sure why she’d kept it. Nostalgia? Cheaper way of calling Uncle Torbjorn? Privater way to have phone sex with Brigette? She certainly had never expected it to light up again.  
  
It is though, and she isn’t entirely sure how to handle that, or Winston’s message.  
  
Angela scrubs a hand against her face, sighing again. She can hear the faint sounds of the hospital at night, can vaguely hear shouts from the ER that mean she’ll probably get a call to come down soon. Fuck. She hasn’t slept in forty hours, and if she’s hearing the distant clamour correctly she’s going at least another ten.  
  
Then again, she’d probably just lie awake, staring up at her ceiling and trying to decide what to do.  
  
Answer or ignore?  
  
Yes or no?  
  
“God damnit,” she says, glaring slightly at the communicator.  
  
She isn’t sure she’d want to go back to Overwatch. Not after how it all ended. Military trials on the verge of being called. Almost losing her medical license. The explosion in Zurich. Her failure with Gabriel. The losses of Gerard, Amelie, Ana, Satya and Jesse.  
  
Fuck. It’s pathetic she’s grateful that Jesse and Satya never knew what happened to Gabriel. Satya had hated her enough after the mess with Agent Mertz. All she’d wanted to do was save her… Yes, the technology had been experimental, but it had done so well in the trials! She’d thought…  
  
Well, she’d thought wrong. Like she’d thought wrong on so many other things.  
  
She needs help thinking.  
  
Angela grabs her comm unit and triggers a familiar number.  
  
“Brigitte? I need to talk to you about something.”

* * *

  
_Recall._  
  
Retirement had never suited him. Not the way his armor had, his uniform, his rank as an Overwatch Lieutenant and a Crusader. He’d never been meant to rust away, watch as the organization he’d dedicated so much of his life to collapse from rot. He should have kept fighting, kept in the field or at least kept training agents. Instead he’d let himself be pushed out, ‘retired’ to the lovely windmills of Germany.  
  
But a Recall would change that. Allow him to be with his friends and family again, to be more than a knight-errant. Yes, he can protect the innocent. Yes, he can travel and help. But without the weight of Overwatch behind him...just how many places has he slayed monsters, walked away, only for new ones to appear? How many towns and cities will he visit that he thought saved, only to find destroyed by something that came after?  
  
“Yes. Angie, you know what I think already,” Brigitte sighs, startling Reinhardt; he hadn’t noticed her picking up her comm to speak with Angela.  
  
“Brigitte?” he asks, drawing his apprentice’s attention.  
  
“Hold on Angie, it’s Uncle Rein,” Brigitte puts a hand over her comm speaker. “What’s up?”  
  
“Are you on the comm with Angela?”  
  
“Yes?” Brigitte says, raising a brow at him in confusion.  
  
“Did she get the Recall?”  
  
“Yes. Do you guys want to discuss this over speaker?” Brigitte asks, going to adjust her comm unit to speaker mode anyway. A pale blue sprite of Angela pops up. “Okay, now we can all speak.”  
  
“Hallo Reinhardt,” Angela greets him, smiling slightly. She looks tired, like she’s not getting enough rest.  
  
“Hallo Angela. Is your work going well in Kurdistan?” he asks, grinning at her small sprite.  
  
“Yes, it is,” she says, smiling fading a bit. “But I’m thinking of ending it soon.”  
  
“Oh?” he asks, biting down a hint of hope, even as he spots Brigitte biting back a knowing smile. “Why?”  
  
“I think you know why,” she says, giving him an almost admonishing look. “Winston has sent out a Recall.”  
  
“And we’re going to respond,” Brigitte continues. “Uncle Reinhardt, even if you don’t want to join, we will be. But I suspect you’ll be the first one there.”  
  
“You’d be right,” he agrees, grin broadening. “Let’s return home.”

* * *

  
_Recall._  
  
“I love you too Brigette,” Torbjorn says, putting down his comm. “Have a goodnight.”  
  
“Oh, was that Brigitte?” Astrid asks him, Sven asleep on her shoulder. “How are she and Rein doing?”  
  
“They’re responding to the Recall. Angela too,” he says, smiling absently at his wife and youngest son.  
  
“Oh,” Astrid says, voice growing softer, blue eyes dropping down.  
  
“I’m not going to respond,” he says, gently touching her arm.  
  
“What?” she asks, blinking at him in startlement. “But you loved…”  
  
“Yes, I loved being part of Overwatch. I loved being a hero,” Torbjorn says, interrupting her. “I loved fixing what I did wrong with the rest of the Iron Guild so long ago. But I’m not leaving you and our children behind. I can act as an advisor.”  
  
“But you’ll be staying here in Sweden with me and the children,” Astrid says, sitting down on his lap, adjusting Sven so they can both cuddle the infant. “Even though Reinhardt is rejoining. And other old timers will.”  
  
“Yes,” he hesitates for a moment. “It’s different for me than for Reinhardt. He was made to retire before he was ready. I was about to request retirement so I could spend more time with you and our children. I missed most of Brigette’s childhood between the Crisis and Overwatch’s infancy. I’m not doing that again.”  
  
“But if they need your help…”  
  
“Unless it’s truly dire, Brigette can do it,” Torbjorn says bluntly. “She’s an engineer at par with me. There’s a reason we’ve all trusted her to keep an eye on Reinhardt alone, to upkeep his Crusader armor and to keep him alive in general. She can defend herself and this new Overwatch.” He gently kisses Astrid.  
  
“So I’ll be staying here with you.”

* * *

  
_Recall._  
  
Sombra sneers as she glances at the blinking comm unit. Stupid thing hadn’t stopped blinking since Winston sent out the Recall a month earlier. _Feh_. Silly monkey. What does he think Overwatch is going to do?  
  
Hell, how does he think it’s going to work? Does he think the UN is just magically going to allow Overwatch to reform? After it put so much effort into tearing it down in the first place? Did he forget about the court martials? The fact Gabriel and Morrison were about to be brought up on fucking _war crimes_?  
  
Probably. He did seem the sort to focus on the good and ignore the bad.  
  
She rolls her eyes, flicking her way through the information she’d stolen from Vishkar during her and Satya’s little vacation. Hmm. They’re really freaking out over who Kali could be. More than she’d expected; probably due to dos Santos’s successful use of their sound tech. Too many outsiders using their proprietary tech.  
  
Sombra ignores the blinking light.  
  
It’s not important anymore.

* * *

  
_Recall._  
  
“So Overwatch is attempting to rise back out of it’s ashes,” Aunt Noriko murmurs, almost as if to herself.  
  
Hanzo knows which information report she’s reading. It’s the same one he and Genji already read over. The one claiming a Recall had been sent over the private Overwatch channel on the old agent comm units, and agents may be responding. Other reports concern rumblings from the underworld about what to do if Overwatch returns.  
  
“How likely do you think that would be?” he asks, sipping his matcha.  
  
“Hmmm,” she hums, tilting her head slightly in thought. “I would say this has a...marginal chance of success. Too much of the older leadership was either killed or destroyed during the collapse of Overwatch. Most agents aren’t going to want to return at the request of a scientist, no matter how high ranking.”  
  
“How can a scientist, no matter how high ranking, send out a Recall?” Genji asks, frowning. “That doesn’t seem like it’d be their field.”  
  
“They’re the last resident of a Watchpoint supposedly,” Aunt Noriko says, sipping her own matcha and giving Genji a warning look as he tries to open up an energy drink; he grabs a cup of jasmine tea with a sigh instead. “Perhaps that makes them feel they have the right to do it? Besides, depending on what the message had been, maybe they even had a good reason. After all, look at that debacle in Numbani.”  
  
“The museum attack or the rumored rise of a new Doomfist?” Hanzo asks, having multiple information reports on both.  
  
“Both. Increased activity from organizations such as ourselves and Talon are also making people...jittery. Perhaps they believe that due to the increase of Talon activity, the possibility of Doomfist reappearing and the mess in Russia that Overwatch will be welcome,” she shrugs. “It’s foolish however. Very few would return unless the UN gave an all clear, and I doubt with how it collapsed in the first place that the UN will do so.”  
  
“Yeah...you’d think having all their dirty laundry waved around would make them realize a Recall is a bad idea,” Genji snarks. “Then again, scientist, not leader. But hey, maybe more information will come out this way. Ton of stuff still unknown on Blackwatch.”  
  
“You have far too much of a fascination with Blackwatch. Or at least, with a certain duo of agents,” Hanzo says, frowning at Genji.  
  
“Oh come on! Vaswani was the only known non-Vishkar hardlight wielder, and she used it to be a blackops agent. She was cool!” Genji says, rolling his eyes. “And McCree? A fucking cowboy in the 21st century.”  
  
“You could pretend to act your age,” Hanzo sighs. Really Genji?  
  
“Oh shut up. You still read Sailor Moon and cry over the fucking cats.”  
  
“I do not!”  
  
“Do too anija!”  
  
_“Boys.”_  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“Sorry,” Hanzo coughs slightly, flushing in embarrassment. “Regardless. The Clan needs to do something. It’s not good for us if Overwatch returns from the ashes.”  
  
“Then let’s plot,” Genji grins.  
  
“Yes, let’s.”

* * *

  
_Recall._  
  
“Idealism is a fascinating thing,” Patience muses, throwing the comm back and forth between her hands.  
  
“Isn’t it?” Kimiko snarks, the former head of Overwatch Interrogation rolling her eyes at her Blackwatch counterpart. “Fuck, did he even think before he did this?”  
  
“Well, he did at least have the decency to wait five years. Grass has grown on graves and all that,” Patience says, finally putting the blinking device down. “But no, definitely not one of his brighter ideas.”  
  
“At least we can use this,” Kimiko sighs, scrubbing her face. “I’m going to respond. Getting access again to the old databases and membership lists can be helpful in figuring out just who were the traitors. Also may be helpful for figuring out what the hell really went down that day in Zurich.”  
  
“Yes, there’s definitely no way Gabriel suddenly lead an uprising like that against Jack after almost fifteen years and as the organization was already collapsing. And with jealousy as the root of all of it? Really?” Patience says scornfully. “Couldn’t the UN PR machine do a bit better?”  
  
“People bought it, so the PR machine worked just fine,” Kimiko drawls. She taps her fingers against her thigh. “I think everyone from the Blackwatch half of Interrogation…”  
  
“None of us are responding,” Patience interrupts. “Me because I’m still ‘dead’ and the rest of us would just be in too awkward a situation rejoining this nuWatch. Besides, would Blackwatch agents even be _trusted_ to join?”  
  
“I doubt it,” Kimiko grimaces. “Especially if both the rumors about who Reaper is are true, and the one about him attacking Gibraltar just before the Recall went out. I am almost tempted to suggest you know who rejoin. See how many people would cry and scream.”  
  
“Kimi!” Patience snickers, unable to help herself. “That’s just mean!”  
  
“What? It would be hilarious!”  
  
“Still mean. And anyway, he’s too busy to do that. Still looking into his suspicion about Widowmaker,” Patience says, frowning slightly. “What do you think about that anyway?”  
  
“What? That Widowmaker is really an omnic that was programed with Amelie Lacroix’s memories? It would explain how she could be blue and how she suddenly became a master assassin when she’d had no prior combat training.”  
  
“We know by the time we ‘rescued’ her that Talon definitely had completely infiltrated Overwatch. Easy enough to assume they had a plant insert themselves in as the doctor who cleared her as okay to go home with Gerard. So that way her being an omnic would go unnoticed. And they had her for enough weeks that I could see them breaking a civilian, getting the important, relevant memories to take over Lacroix’s life and then sending it home to kill Gerard,” Kimiko says.  
  
“True...and you know what? I kinda hope he is right about that. Because it’s a bit kinder to hope that Amelie’s been dead for years, than Amelie’s been brainwashed and under Talon control for all these years,” Patience grimaces. “If she has, and the omnic theory is bust, then we should do her the kindness of putting a bullet in her brain.”  
  
“Oh, definitely, and he’d agreed with us,” Kimiko nods. “But for now, we’ll let him worry on that, and worry about me fitting back into Overwatch and figuring out what happened for real those last few years. And if we can find out those answers, figure out what’s going on these past five years, with the further rise of Talon, Kali and Coyote’s appearance, and the rumors about some sort of global conspiracy.”  
  
“Lets.”

* * *

  
tty00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A  
anbsx3 at 0x2290 irq 5 drq 1  
koscx5 at 0x9830 irq 7 drq 2  
tumtx3 at 0x1123 irq 9 drq 6  
seokx4 at 0x1120 irq 3 drq 0  
Drive 0: CR-52x-x (4.31)  
  
...................... Network Status:  Online  
...................... System Scan: Completed  
...................... Information Scan: Completed  
  
...................... Initializing protocols  
WDCPX: 1 SlotMaster chipsocket array(s) at 0x0230  
WDIPX: 1 PlugMaster Plus enhanced central interface array(s) at 0x0240  
  
Calibrating delay loop... ok  
  
  
Protocol Doomfist: Initialized  
  
  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
HEYLEL ONLINE  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
root@Heylel$ |

**Author's Note:**

> Tandri: Telugu for 'Dad'  
> Mija/Mijo: my daughter/my son
> 
> I can also be found at my tumblr, barid-bel-medar.tumblr.com


End file.
